Only 38 percent of companies in the random group had engineering defensibility, a statistic that shows an increased likelihood of success when there’s engineering complexity. Engineering alone, however, is often not enough. Many companies coupled engineering defensibility with other types of moats. About 28 percent of the billion-dollar startups ha

For businesses without Warren Buffett’s “moat” protecting them, a new model existed: “capital as a moat.” Can’t beat them? Drown them in cash.

Among billion-dollar startups, only 8 percent had no defensibility factor—but over 45 percent in the group of random startups lacked specific defensibility. This shows the importance of having strong moats around a company and was another strong difference I observed in the data.